In the past, entities that desired to make payments would use a payment device such as a credit card or a debit card. The payment device would have account numbers on it and these account number would be read by a vendor and verified by a trust party such as a card issuer. However, ensuring security for payment devices has become increasingly complex especially with more transactions being made over a network and a vendor not being able to physically examine a card and card holder to determine fraud. In addition, people that commit fraud have become more technically savvy.
In addition, as people use networks more, the ability to control data that relates to them has diminished. Network sites collect relevant data on users and use that data to target communications to the user without compensating the user for allow his/her data to be used. Finally, some users may be fine sharing data with certain network sites and not others and the decision whether to share data may be influenced by how much someone is willing to pay to obtain the data.